


leave a light on

by perennial



Category: Centurion (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2209068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the soldier trio runs into the woods she knows she will never see him again, and he knows it, too; and she knows the reason he does not look back at her is the same reason she watches him go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave a light on

**Author's Note:**

> in the darkness before the dawn  
> in the swirling of the storm  
> when i’m rolling with the punches and hope is gone  
> leave a light, a light on
> 
> millions of miles from home  
> in the swirling, swimming on  
> when i’m rolling with the thunder but bleed from thorns  
> leave a light, a light on
> 
> [coldplay, midnight]

When the soldier trio runs into the woods she knows she will never see him again, and he knows it, too; and she knows the reason he does not look back at her is the same reason she watches him go. It is a strange sensation, watching him carry her heart away, knowing it is happening, knowing what he could have been to her— _would_ have been, were it a different world, one that had seen fit to deliver them into the same lives instead of ones of Roman and Pict.

The cavity in her chest is numb, painless, and knowledge of the wound is all cerebral, as when she had to pull out one of her own molars two years previously. Right now it feels like nothing has happened: there is only the gap, the lack, as evidence. In the morning it will be swollen and raw and she will wish she were dead.

~

She wakes and marvels that any of this has happened. Hers has been an unchanging life, day after day, year after year, predictable as the flowing river—suddenly invaded by a band of foreign warriors who brought with them blood and voices and facial expressions and body odor and life history and eyes of blue. Then they vanished as quickly as a dream, leaving no trace of their presence but the settling dust.

—And a wooden horse figurine whose message is: _please remember_.

She wishes they had never been there.

She will cherish the memory of their visit until the day she dies.

She should not have let them stay. From the first word he spoke, she had known how it would end. They will make it to the garrison, or not; they will return to Rome, or not; they will encounter Etain—this is certain—and will survive the onslaught, or not. It has been an entire day since they departed; he could already be dead. She will never know.

Birch bark: that was the state of her heart. Pale and dry and tough. Now she can feel it: pumping, pulsing, flooded with red, overflowing, awake.

Life seems a long, empty thing. She wants back the warmth and contentedness of two days ago, when she went for water and expected the afternoon to hold nothing but the completion of mundane tasks: gather roots for the supper stew, weave a new fishing net before the old one breaks, dry out the skins that have been ignored too long.

No. The memory of his eyes looking into hers: she would not trade it for the world. The words his own mouth spoke that her own ears might hear them: they run through her mind like brook water in the sunshine.

But they have made the hours empty things.

~

A horse snorts and breaks through the blankness and she turns to find that he has come back, _back to her,_  and her heart jolts with joy so fierce it is a wonder it does not kill her.

Then he falls—so carefully, in agony, _finally_ —and fear lances through her just as sharply. But he is alive, and will stay alive, and the fact that he has come so far and deliberately endured the pain of his wound that he might reach her is an answer in itself. She cannot speak, only presses her lips to his; when his mouth moves against hers she knows he has heard her answer in return.

The first few days he is too tired to do anything but lay on the bed and watch her move about the cabin. This heals him as effectively as her poultices do, she knows; his heart is sick with grief for the friends he lost and the empire that betrayed him. She is the haven, the calm after the storm, the soothing song as he falls asleep. She feeds his exhausted body with what seems like half her stores, amazed that any one person can eat so much and still need more. He promises to replenish what is lost, at which she laughs and tells him that at this rate he will never pay off the debt before his hair turns gray—at which he smiles and holds out his bowl to be refilled.

In both their languages she tells him the stories of her people, old tales of magic and heroes, and she watches him growing to love them as she does. When he asks for a particular one the third night in a row she has a vision of him telling it to a child on his knee and she has to pause to catch her breath.

She sings inside to have been banished, so that her life could cross with his, so that she could save him not once but twice. The rage and bitterness and anguish that she carried with her into the forest hut have all been exorcised by his quiet, steady breathing. She would live it all over again, to have him from it; she would have suffered willingly had she known. That she did not know, and was not willing, and has still been given him: this is the wonder, and this is where she is overwhelmed with the gratitude that she knows will follow her through the rest of her life.

~

He is a man who likes vows. He likes to give his word to something. It makes it permanent, she understands: it becomes a fixed point inside him, steadfast and immovable, a base he can rely on even if the source fails. _A man is only as good as his word_ , he tells her, quoting his father, and she can see how such a mantra has fashioned him into the man he is: all his life he has chosen which words will be the ones he must live up to, stand by, represent.

He tells her he belongs with her, that he knew so the instant he felt her fingers in his, the moment he heard her name. _Arianne_ , he whispers to her, _Arianne_. Her name has become another vow of sorts, she thinks—a brand beneath his skin. She is not sure what he is swearing himself to with it, but he seems to know.

Still, he wants the oath, too; he wants the structure of statements. The promise he makes her is plainly worded but breathtaking to the ears meant to hear them. She is not sure how solemn he expects her to be, receiving it, but she cannot suppress the happiness that floods her face. It startles him a little, her expression, now freed to show him everything—he did not dream he could be as much to her as she is to him, he tells her. When without warning she gives him his oath in return she realizes what he means by _steadiness_. It is like she has been given new footing—as though the ground under her feet is firmer. Who knew simple words on her tongue could produce the warmth spreading through her whole body? And then she thinks she might say it over again, every day, if it will always bring about the look in his eyes that is there now.

~

He plans to move them deeper into the wilderness. It is as much to distance himself from his people as hers. She has never expected to leave this place and finds herself eager to shed it. She wants a home built by both their hands—she wants air untainted by the blood and breath of warriors—she wants to see what sort of life they will create with all the parts fresh.

They will take their two lives and fashion a new one from it, twining and blended like twin oaks in the forest. They will become their own people, loyal to each other and whosoever else they choose. They will carry each other’s awoken hearts with thanks and adoration and intent.

She knows how it starts.


End file.
